Questions that I’m struggling with in regards to Roman Catholicism

Hello Colin,

Let me ask you this: Can you show me from Scripture proof of the doctrine of "apostolic succession"? If you cannot then you must drop this unbiblical concept, and start from scratch, which would be the one infallible standard of authentic faith: God's written word.

Because of its wicked and ungodly corruption the grip of Roman Catholicism over most of the "Christian" world was shattered by the Lord at the time of the Reformation, and men were left with the written word of God, to decide what was true or false as regards the Faith.

(The Orthodox churches are another matter, and suffer from great and dangerous flaws, though not as severe at the RC.)

Since the time of the Reformation the Faith of Christ has spread throughout the world via missionaries, under the auspices of many different church bodies.

The diligent disciple of Jesus Christ will then seek among the multitude of churches which are the truest to the Scripture, primarily by examining their confessional standards (if any), as well their practice in their worship, and the conduct of the congregation.

Often there are not fully sound churches in one's locale, so one must pick the best available. In some countries where the Christian faith is outlawed on pain of death, imprisonment, or persecution, and gatherings of the saints are rare, or impossible to find, one must ask the Lord to bring other believers into one's life. Sometimes, it is only the Lord Himself one can find fellowship with.

The bottom line, and starting point in this discussion: defend apostolic succession from Scripture! Else give it up as false.
 
Beards said:
Similarly, I also struggle with things like Cyprian’s letter on Church Unity. It seems that he believes any separation from the visible Church ruled by elders ordained by genuine elders, etc. puts one outside of salvation. I can’t see how that could be reconciled with the Reformation, where we did leave the visible institution with its presbyters.
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That's literally "More Catholic than the Pope." And I'm not just referring to Francis. Rome rejects this idea and has denounced as heretics those Catholics who teach that you have to be in communion with Rome to be saved. That was denounced even before Vatican II. If this is your idea of Roman Catholicism, it literally does not exist and hasn't for a long time.
 
As others have pointed out, it sounds like you coming to these questions while already granting to Rome all of their supposed claims of authority and history whereas I would say, that upon examination, they are not actually there. It sounds like you have spoken to your pastor, and we are glad you are asking questions here as well, but are you also talking to a Romanist apologist as well? It sounds like you are with the presuppositions you have about Rome.

Additionally, if you are looking for information on the subject, I would recommend James White's debates with Romanists.
 
MyCrows said:
Rome has taken some strange turns towards ecumenism. Including people who are clearly of other faiths(Hindus and muslims), and even of no faith, and saying we are all children of God. Accepting people as spiritual brothers and sisters who reject Christ is a travesty for the gospel.

Rome used to persecute and execute those who rejected her explicit teaching, now they want to embrace nearly everyone, even some branches of protestantism it seems like. Very confusing.

Whatever it takes to keep people in the dark, and away from the truth.
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I watched this video that recently from Ligonier:
The ecumenism has the ultimate goal of bringing everyone under the RCC.
Curiously, I've seen similar patterns from Mormon missionaries. They use similar terms as us protestants (sanctification, trinity, etc.), to establish some sort of "fellowship" and then try to convince us that our faith is better practiced under the LDS church.
 
Also, regarding apostolic succession (I apologize if this has already been said). Even if you can trace an irrefutable line of bishops from Francis all the way back to Peter, and every other bishop for that matter all the way back to the apostles, that does not make the church the same as it was 2000 years ago, let alone 50 years ago. We have an irrefutable line of presidents going back to George Washington, yet our nation is not only different, but almost certainly operating in ways contrary to the desires of the founding fathers. To Phinehas was given a covenant of perpetual priesthood (I struggle to find the same regarding apostolic succession in the NT), yet Caiaphas sent the Messiah to His execution. The RCC changed after Trent 500 years ago, and has morphed again to be nothing like it’s former self after Vatican II. Thus, we are blessed to anchor our hope and salvation in the scriptures, which never change.
 
dsanch1120 said:
The ecumenism has the ultimate goal of bringing everyone under the RCC.
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Yes, I believe it is an insiduous goal of the antichrist to greatly expand their power and influence through a type of syncretism.

Regarding legitimate churches - The Word of God stands in authority over the church, not the church over the Word of God. The Word of God came before any church and is the source and standard of any church's legitimacy.

The church is to be a pillar and buttress of truth, holding it up to the world. If it ceases to do that, it is not a true church. The Catholic Church does not honor the Word of God but corrupts it and claims the teaching of their Magisterium has the same authority as the Word of God written through church tradition. When the those two sources conflict in Catholicism (Word of God written vs tradition), tradition wins. What utter arrogance and rebellion against God!

The Catholic Church enslaves and deceives their followers through devotion to their sacraments in order to have a chance at salvation (but no assurance) along with a blind obedience to their teachers, claiming no person but the Magesterium can properly interpret the Word of God. If you come under their authority, you have rejected the authority of God and His Word over you and replaced it with the teachings of men.
 
Beards said:
Hello,

I’m convinced of the Reformed faith, but recently I’ve been struggling with a lot of questions that have caused me anxiety. I feel the weightiness of them because it seems like if Rome is right, we’re done, and that thought concerns me as I don’t want to be separated from Christ. So I thought I would post them here (forgive me if it’s the wrong thread type) and see if anyone has any answers or resources for these:

1) Are we as Reformed Churches schismatics? I see that the Roman Catholic Church has many deep errors, but how do we avoid the charge of schism or being like the donatists if we really did seperate from Rome and seemingly started a new line of churches?

2) Is Reformed theology a novum in Church history? If so, how can we hold to something that no one else has held to in the history of God’s people?

I ask the 2nd question especially because reading the fathers, it seems like the prédominent view of justification (at least by the 4th century) was that it is the process where God makes us intrinsically just. There also doesn’t seem to be, at least of what I can find, any idea of “Simul Justus Et Peccator.” It seems like since legal justification by faith alone is so clear in Scripture, it would be very clear in the fathers.

3) How can we know for certain? It seems like both side use the fathers and Scripture, and being that we are so limited, none of us can study these things exhaustively to come to a conclusion. So how can we come to know with certainty, especially when the stakes are so high?

Thank you.
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Hello,

This is a good way to think about these things. I hope some of this helps:

1) Rome is the schismatic. The Church has always been the Church even when she has erred. Christ has been and forever will be the Good Shepherd of His sheep and not one has been lost.

I'll give a brief defense:

Rome didn't give a clear view on justification until the council of Trent (16th Century). In Trent, Rome condemns the gospel by stating, "If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema." 6th session, canon 9. Try to disprove faith alone as the only means by which a sinner can be saved in the Bible and you'll come up empty unless you are reading with your eyes closed. So it is clear they are apostate while the true church has always remained.

2) In spite of its claims on history, the Roman Catholic Church really didn't define itself until Trent. Rome also has developed huge, non biblical, accretions through the ages that are absent in the early church (a pope, 7 sacraments, purgatory transubstantiation, etc.)

Transubstantiation for example wasn't added to Rome's doctrine until 1213 in the 4th Lateran Council. Before then it was debated among the church (look up the 9th century controversy between Rabertus and Ratramnus).

The history of the papacy is insane as well. Early evidence of a "pope" comes from Domasus I who simply called himself "papa." (384) There is no evidence he actually held any authority over the church at large. It wasn't until Pope Leo 1 (400-461) that the "Pope" started to claim authority. Leo called himself "Pontifex Maximus" which is a term which comes from Roman paganism (still used in the R.C Church today btw). Then there's the 4th Century donation of Constantine (claiming that Constantine granted power to the pope) that was found to be a complete forgery. Closer to the Reformation, there was the Avignon papacy where 3 popes were appointed by cardinals at the same time... so much for apostolic succession. Then there were popes bringing in prostitutes, having loads of children etc.

Romes history is really an apologetic against itself rather than for it. It demanded reform.

and don't even get me started on indulgences...

Against this dark backdrop comes the light of the reformation. The Word of God is opened up again and the faith is recovered. Original sources were being read from the early church too. Around the time of the reformation was renaissance humanism, the cry of the day being "Ad Fontes!" which means "back to the sources!" The reformed simply went back to the practices of the early church and ixnayed all the heresy.

So I know Roman Catholicism can seem intimidating and we don't want to be deemed as schismatics, but when you really read the history you can see it is a complete scam. Rome is thoroughly unbiblical.

Although they show themselves to be like a might redwood tree, they can never be the "apple tree among the trees of wood" (Song of Songs 2:3) that can adequately feed & nurture the hungry sinner.

I hope this helps and relieves some anxiety on the matter. I highly recommend you to research more of this to look into it yourself. Check out Robert Godfrey on church history or read the Heidelblog.

-From your brother in SD
 
Phil D. said:
With regard to 1: the Orthodox have the much stronger historical case that the Roman church was the real schismatic party in the Great East-West Schism of 1054.
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I know it's a minor point, but I have personally found that surprisingly helpful in appreciating a Protestant and Reformed understanding of the church more and more. Even if we grant Roman Catholic claims about the nature of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church (and we shouldn't!) it seems that, historically speaking, the Eastern Church can make a much stronger case than the Roman Church to the hold on those claims.
 
Beards said:
Hello,

I’m convinced of the Reformed faith, but recently I’ve been struggling with a lot of questions that have caused me anxiety. I feel the weightiness of them because it seems like if Rome is right, we’re done, and that thought concerns me as I don’t want to be separated from Christ. So I thought I would post them here (forgive me if it’s the wrong thread type) and see if anyone has any answers or resources for these:

1) Are we as Reformed Churches schismatics? I see that the Roman Catholic Church has many deep errors, but how do we avoid the charge of schism or being like the donatists if we really did seperate from Rome and seemingly started a new line of churches?

2) Is Reformed theology a novum in Church history? If so, how can we hold to something that no one else has held to in the history of God’s people?

I ask the 2nd question especially because reading the fathers, it seems like the prédominent view of justification (at least by the 4th century) was that it is the process where God makes us intrinsically just. There also doesn’t seem to be, at least of what I can find, any idea of “Simul Justus Et Peccator.” It seems like since legal justification by faith alone is so clear in Scripture, it would be very clear in the fathers.

3) How can we know for certain? It seems like both side use the fathers and Scripture, and being that we are so limited, none of us can study these things exhaustively to come to a conclusion. So how can we come to know with certainty, especially when the stakes are so high?

Thank you.
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Colin, I did my senior thesis at Calvin College back in the 1980s on John Henry Cardinal Newman's "development of doctrine" hypothesis. Newman messed me up theologically for several years on some of the same issues you raise, namely, that if Rome is right, all the rest of us are in a lot of trouble. Newman has his own logic, he's done serious research and study on the church fathers and development of doctrine, and if his premises are granted, they will inexorably lead those who hold those premises, not to Canterbury, but either to Rome or to Eastern Orthodoxy.

I hear echoes of what Newman said in what you wrote, and I hear things you are writing that I could have written a few years after my conversion, and the best thing I can tell you is to keep studying the Church Fathers, and you will find that the Fathers disagree among themselves, but St. Augustine's doctrine didn't represent a radical shift from more ancient church teaching on soteriology. I have the Ante-Nicene Fathers on my bookshelf and it is very difficult to make a credible claim that they had a consensus of teaching among themselves on much beyond what we would consider the most critical essentials of the gospel, certainly not a consensus on things the Roman Catholic Church teaches today.

But I want to focus on something different here that I think is your main concern, not soteriology but ecclesiology, namely, whether the Catholics can correctly claim to be the one true church and that all others are in schism.

For most Reformed people, the claims of the Roman Catholic Church are theoretical only. That's not true for me. I am ethnically Italian. My father left the church following Vatican II because he had been taught his entire life, including twelve years of parochial schooling, that Catholics were right and Protestants were wrong because Catholics have the unchanging truth since the age of the apostles, while Protestants change their doctrine to suit historical circumstances. Then he saw the radical changes of Vatican II in worship and church life and said, "The Catholics have changed, they must be wrong too," and abandoned any claim to Christian faith.

There are baptismal records of the Maurina family dating back to the founding of our ancestral village in the 900s. (Yes, I do mean 900s, as in eleven centuries ago.) I am, as far as I know, the only Protestant ever in my family, though one of my relatives, a Catholic priest, got in serious trouble with his bishop for publishing an unauthorized book that wasn't very compatible with a number of Catholic doctrines. He got away with it because he had been a war hero on the Italian side during World War I and apparently the bishop decided to tolerate a priest who was much more popular with the people than he was with his bishop. The more research I do into my family history the more I am beginning to think some of my relatives had contact with Waldensians either in Italy or in South America, but even if they did, they never left the Catholic Church, they just objected to some of its doctrines, and not necessarily the right ones against which they should have objected. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the Waldensians themselves were beginning to be infiltrated by rationalism and German liberalism, and attracting liberals who rejected the wrong things about the Roman Catholic Church, so some of my relatives' views would have been compatible with the only non-Catholic church they would have known considering where they were living at the time.

There are a lot of things that can be said about the Roman Catholic Church, and the importance of distinguishing between the church as it existed before and after the Council of Trent.

But I think the best argument against the older traditional fear that Roman Catholics presented to Protestants, namely, "you need to consider your eternal state if we're right and you're not," is not that Trent represented a fatal shift in official Catholic doctrine, but rather, that Vatican II undercut the single best argument that Roman Catholics have for making their historic claims to truth.

Official Roman Catholic doctrine is nowhere near as inclusive as a lot of liberal Catholics claim. Vatican II did much less than some liberals say it did.

But one thing Vatican II definitely **DID** do was to say that it is possible to be saved apart from the Catholic Church.

A sedevacantist (someone who says the See of St. Peter is vacant due to apostasy), or a follower of the SSPX (the Society of St. Pius X, a Latin Mass advocacy group that objects to Vatican II) can continue to make the claims that mainstream Roman Catholics made prior to Vatican II that they are the one true church and all others are not only in error, but on their way to eternal hellfire.

That is no longer official Roman Catholic doctrine. They themselves have undercut their own case.
 
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darrellmaurina said:
A sedevacantist (someone who says the See of St. Peter is vacant due to apostasy), or a follower of the SSPX (the Society of St. Pius X, a Latin Mass advocacy group that objects to Vatican II) can continue to make the claims that mainstream Roman Catholics made prior to Vatican II that they are the one true church and all others are not only in error, but on their way to eternal hellfire.

That is no longer official Roman Catholic doctrine. They themselves have undercut their own case.
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Precisely. The more I read pre-Vatican II Catholic dogmatics the more I have come to notice this undercutting. I actually use this as an arrow in the quiver whenever I hear a Catholic argue that the RCC has taught the same exact consistent teachings all the way back to the early church. One doesn't need to go too far back in history to find concrete example of this not being true.
 
The RCC trajectory on the death penalty is as good of an example as any of the changes within the last century. I have a handful of old Catholic books that I'll probably keep simply because they serve as evidence of change through the years. One book (among many) that has an imprimatur says that the death penalty is obligatory. Now we are told this teaching is wrong and sinful.

I wanted to keep my earlier comment short, so I didn't mention sedevacantism. But Darrell is exactly right. It is the only consistent way. If I were to be convinced of the claims of the RCC, I'd have to immediately become a sedevacantist. Which would mean that the gates of hell indeed prevailed against the church except for a single shack in backwoods Northern California. Or is it Upstate New York? Northern Florida? Or is it the SSPX? (I haven't looked at it in a long time, but I think there are several competing sedevacantist sects, all of which claim to be the only true successor to the legit RCC.)

Millions left the RCC after Vatican II for the reasons that Darrell's father did. They were taught that it had to be a certain way or they'd go to hell. Then they were told that it wasn't a big deal after all. Some were genuinely converted after leaving. The majority probably were not. This defection is one of the factors in the rise of the "Nones."
 
Pilgrim said:
(I haven't looked at it in a long time, but I think there are several competing sedevacantist sects, all of which claim to be the only true successor to the legit RCC.)

Millions left the RCC after Vatican II for the reasons that Darrell's father did. They were taught that it had to be a certain way or they'd go to hell. Then they were told that it wasn't a big deal after all. Some were genuinely converted after leaving. The majority probably were not. This defection is one of the factors in the rise of the "Nones."
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Pilgrim is right. There are competing conservative groups that view themselves as part of the Roman Catholic tradition and whose bishops were either ordained before Vatican II by proper Roman Catholic authority, or can clearly trace their episcopal lineage to bishops who were ordained prior to Vatican II, and also some liberal-to-moderate groups which probably have legitimate orders (i.e., proper ordination of their bishops being able to trace episcopal lineage and claim apostolic succession).

The details get very complicated and are not going to be of interest to most evangelical or Reformed Protestants, except perhaps some in the Anglican tradition. To make a very long story short, official Roman Catholic doctrine since the ancient church has regarded the office of bishop as the key unit of what we would call church government. As St. Ignatius put it in his Epistle to Smyrna: "Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." (And yes, I'm well aware of the controversy over the Ignatian letters -- that's not my point here. Regardless of whether they are authentic, or whether some are and some are not, or whether, as seems likely, there are shorter authentic versions of the letters to which later items were added that made some of the letters longer, this quote fairly reflects the views of most of the church within a century or two of the death of the apostles, thanks to major fights with heretical groups that forced centralization of teaching authority at least on a local level.)

A local bishop is supposed to be in communion with the Bishop of Rome, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, but the way that works in the Eastern Rite churches is significantly different from the churches of the Western Rite, despite both being part of the Catholic Church. Also, the Eastern Orthodox family of churches in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople but out of communion with Rome has always been regarded as being a special case. Particularly since Vatican II, there's been a much greater willingness to recognize the legitimacy of bishops other than the Eastern Orthodox who are out of communion with Rome, or in some sort of "impaired communion" status.

Some but far from all of the groups that refused to recognize Vatican II are regarded by the Roman Catholic Church as having legitimate orders. Probably the best-organized, and the one with the best claim to legitimacy in the eyes of the Roman Catholic world, is the SSPX.

But it's not just conservative bishops who are "on the outs" with current Roman Catholic practices. People who pay attention to the Roman Catholic Church should be looking very closely what is going on in Germany with wealthy taxpayer funded churches that have the financial ability, at least for now before their remaining congregations go into demographic free fall due to aging populations and few babies being born, to defy Rome and promote liberal policies.

The population growth of the Roman Catholic Church is in the Third World, but that's not where the money is, at least not yet. The money comes from American conservatives (think EWTN and its supporters) and from German liberals.

Those who think the Roman Catholic Church is doctrinally unified simply do not know the facts on the ground. I respect conservative Catholics who sincerely believe that the Bishop of Rome is the vicar of St. Peter and will preserve the church from error, but I don't find that in the Bible, and that case was far easier to make in the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI than it with Pope Francis in the papal chair.

That's another factor, and a very important one, that people considering converting to Rome need to consider. The Roman Catholicism of Pope John Paul II simply is not what a lot of people are going to find when they look at a local parish church. Now a Catholic can say, "Isn't that the same problem of the PCA? You don't know from church to church what you are going to find." My response is going to be, "Yes, but unlike you, we Reformed people do not believe God will providentially preserve individual denominations from error, only that he will preserve the church, because Christ is a King and He cannot be a King without subjects. And also, the worst churches in the worst of the NAPARC denominations aren't as bad as parishes I can find by doing ten minutes of Googling for bad Catholic parishes. We have plenty of our own problems, but despite your doctrine of episcopal power, too many of your bishops seem unable to effectively use their power to clean up their own back yards in their own dioceses."

The bottom line, as I see matters, is that Irenaeus was right in his "Adversus Haereses." When under challenge by heresies, we need to stick with teachers who teach the doctrine they have been handed down from the apostles, but the apostolic succession is of doctrine, not so much of persons.

My Anglican friends won't necessarily agree with me on that. I'm pretty sure St. Augustine would look at me and say, "Why is this young and arrogant man claiming to respect my soteriology in the fight against Pelagius while disrespecting my ecclesiology and my teaching on the ancient office of bishop?"

But Roman Catholicism looks a whole lot better on paper, and in theological debates, than it does when we get an actual look at how the Roman Catholic Church implements its teachings. The authority of the bishops and the Pope is vast in theory, but in practice, I think a lot of Reformed presbyteries and classes have more real ability to fix problems than some Roman Catholic bishops have in their own back yards.
 
I think a lot of Reformed presbyteries and classes have more real ability to fix problems than some Roman Catholic bishops have in their own back yards.
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I think the biggest problem is they've not been able to fix their heretical doctrine since Trent........
 
davejonescue said:
A good resource to read on this may be Calvins "Prefatory Address to King Francis I of France." It is a short read, but address the issue you are having, as did I believe this King at the time.

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What an interesting letter! Thank you for sharing it, friend. I was particularly struck by this bit:

“Now, that king who in ruling over his realm does not serve God’s glory exercises not kingly rule but brigandage.”

We certainly have succumbed to brigandage in America. May God have mercy on our nation..
 
Remember, the RCC does not have the gospel. They actively hate the true gospel and anathematize those who hold to it. It is absolutely impossible that the "true church" doesn't have the gospel while the false church does. Impossible. The true church and the gospel are never separated, because God has given it to his covenant people as a possession forever. If you see a church without the gospel, you are looking at a branch broken off from the olive tree.
 
Beards said:
Hello,

I’m convinced of the Reformed faith, but recently I’ve been struggling with a lot of questions that have caused me anxiety. I feel the weightiness of them because it seems like if Rome is right, we’re done, and that thought concerns me as I don’t want to be separated from Christ. So I thought I would post them here (forgive me if it’s the wrong thread type) and see if anyone has any answers or resources for these:

1) Are we as Reformed Churches schismatics? I see that the Roman Catholic Church has many deep errors, but how do we avoid the charge of schism or being like the donatists if we really did seperate from Rome and seemingly started a new line of churches?

2) Is Reformed theology a novum in Church history? If so, how can we hold to something that no one else has held to in the history of God’s people?

I ask the 2nd question especially because reading the fathers, it seems like the prédominent view of justification (at least by the 4th century) was that it is the process where God makes us intrinsically just. There also doesn’t seem to be, at least of what I can find, any idea of “Simul Justus Et Peccator.” It seems like since legal justification by faith alone is so clear in Scripture, it would be very clear in the fathers.

3) How can we know for certain? It seems like both side use the fathers and Scripture, and being that we are so limited, none of us can study these things exhaustively to come to a conclusion. So how can we come to know with certainty, especially when the stakes are so high?

Thank you.
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It breaks my heart to see a brother in Christ in spiritual turmoil like this. My prayers will be for you to understand the security we have in Christ and the sufficiency of His atoning work.

However, I must ask, do you interact with Dr. Matthew Barrett's teachings? This type of rhetoric seems to fit his "brand," I have some helpful resources I can offer to help you navigate this issue if you are interested.

Because of Christ
 
Beards said:
After meeting with my pastor and thinking on this more, I think I’ve arrived to some more definite and clear questions.

I believe what I was trying to say with my 1st question was this:

If the Church is in part defined by its visible government, whose officers are ordained and laid hands on by the present elders, then can we truly claim Reformed Churches to be true Churches when we broke from Rome and hence had ministers and officers that were not ordained by the visibly instituted elders at the time (in Rome)?

To put it this way:

Paul ordains Bob, Joe, and Berry as Elders in Ephesus, they then ordain Jerry (very 1st century names) and on and on. Down to the 15th century, elders ordained by those who were ordained by those who were long long ago ordained by Jerry have fallen into error. The Reformation happens. John becomes an elder of a Reformed congregation. But if John and the other elders were not ordained by Jerry and friends, who were ordained by a long line of office bearing men, can John really be said to be an elder and can that church really be said to be a true church founded by Christ? Since their authority didn’t come from Jerry and crew, they must be appointed apart from the presbytery, which (I assume) we would all normally reject.

Unless I’m wrong on my history (please correct me if I am wrong), isn’t this what happened? If so, how can we really say Protestant churches are true churches?

Similarly, I also struggle with things like Cyprian’s letter on Church Unity. It seems that he believes any separation from the visible Church ruled by elders ordained by genuine elders, etc. puts one outside of salvation. I can’t see how that could be reconciled with the Reformation, where we did leave the visible institution with its presbyters.

How do we reconcile this? I am convinced of Protestant doctrine and I am convinced Rome is in contradiction to much of Scripture and the teaching of the orthodox fathers, but this is one area where I can’t see any resolution yet. If anyone has any ideas, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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The early Reformers were ordained prior to the Reformation. Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer, and even Knox were ordained as priests in communion with Rome before they were excommunicated for preaching the gospel and renouncing the tyranny of the Pope.

As was noted before--the papists are the schismatics, and they're the worst kind of schismatics: they've separated themselves from the gospel. They went out from us because they were not of us. The unity of the church is a unity in the truth under Christ. The papists have rejected Christ's reign, his gospel, his faithful ministers, and his people. It doesn't get much more schismatic than that.
 
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